This is not about the World Cup. It is instead a brief musing about meaning. What does, "Come on England" mean? Should there be a comma and, frankly, if there were would it make any difference?
"Come on board" makes sense. "Come on England" does not make sense, certainly not in the way that "Allez la France" does.
I wonder whether the phrase is a corruption of the much more gentle, "Come along, England"?
Possibly, or is the preposition used in the sense of "Trot on", or "Get on with it"?
Or perhaps I don't know what I'm on about.
Tuesday 15 June 2010
WHERE ARE YOUR SISTERS WHEN YOU NEED THEM?
This is a question about the BP disaster and it has to do with the absence of support - either predatory or (possibly) altruistic from the oil majors also known as the seven sisters. It is also a question about whether a problem that is either impossible to solve or (hopefully) simply very difficult to solve is helped by the threats, potential legal action and, frankly, jingoist bluster emanating from the White House.
If BP could have solved the oil leak quickly, it would already have done so. The interesting point for me, is that none of remaining six of the 'Seven Sisters': Shell, Exxon, Texaco, Socal, Gulf (BP is of that number) etc, has - to use an Americanism - stepped upto the plate to help out. In fact the silence from this group of usually vociferous, buccaneering businesses has been deafening.
Certainly these companies may be having closed-doors conversations with Obama but little, if you'll pardon the black humour, has leaked out. Why? Because they don't know how to solve the problem either and they're surely not going to try and be found to fail which, I think is a great pity (I mean the trying not the failing). The cost of failure should not be so high but undoubtedly any action, by say, Chevron would, almost automatically involve that group in some sort of class action suit - a result to be avoided at all costs.
Obama is electioneering. His usually diplomatic, intellectual approach has deserted him on this occasion and, I would argue, to no great advantage for either the inhabitants or businesses of the northern Gulf of Mexico (let alone the shareholders of BP). Financial compensation is one thing but the destruction of a way and a quality of life is more than a monetary issue and it might be better to get all interested parties - the sisters, academics, the locals and so on, working together rather than shouting about unsatisfactory responses and forecasting doom as the hurricane season approaches.
Try this. Set you mother, sister, child or friend a brain-teaser. One of those, "If I have three eggs and my brother has a blue ball and my sister is twice as old as her aunt when she was first on a pony" sort of problems. These things are for most people damn nearly impossible to solve in a calm environment. But if you keep shouting, "Get it solved, get it solved, I'm going to take all your money, get it solved," I would argue the success rate in terms of a solution to said problem will be low to zero.
Let's some sisterly support here and worry about the money later on.
If BP could have solved the oil leak quickly, it would already have done so. The interesting point for me, is that none of remaining six of the 'Seven Sisters': Shell, Exxon, Texaco, Socal, Gulf (BP is of that number) etc, has - to use an Americanism - stepped upto the plate to help out. In fact the silence from this group of usually vociferous, buccaneering businesses has been deafening.
Certainly these companies may be having closed-doors conversations with Obama but little, if you'll pardon the black humour, has leaked out. Why? Because they don't know how to solve the problem either and they're surely not going to try and be found to fail which, I think is a great pity (I mean the trying not the failing). The cost of failure should not be so high but undoubtedly any action, by say, Chevron would, almost automatically involve that group in some sort of class action suit - a result to be avoided at all costs.
Obama is electioneering. His usually diplomatic, intellectual approach has deserted him on this occasion and, I would argue, to no great advantage for either the inhabitants or businesses of the northern Gulf of Mexico (let alone the shareholders of BP). Financial compensation is one thing but the destruction of a way and a quality of life is more than a monetary issue and it might be better to get all interested parties - the sisters, academics, the locals and so on, working together rather than shouting about unsatisfactory responses and forecasting doom as the hurricane season approaches.
Try this. Set you mother, sister, child or friend a brain-teaser. One of those, "If I have three eggs and my brother has a blue ball and my sister is twice as old as her aunt when she was first on a pony" sort of problems. These things are for most people damn nearly impossible to solve in a calm environment. But if you keep shouting, "Get it solved, get it solved, I'm going to take all your money, get it solved," I would argue the success rate in terms of a solution to said problem will be low to zero.
Let's some sisterly support here and worry about the money later on.
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